[PRP] Silence of the Horses (Na'ima/Mahir)

[Eight]

It wasn't that Na'ima had been..avoiding him per se, she had been informed of his continued existence her first day reunited with Salbei and had been overjoyed to hear of it, but she had also been warned of his...condition. Perhaps her not seeking him Mahir for so long had been her way of coping, delaying the inevitable, not having to fully accept the reality that their home, everything they loved, the glorious legacy and land they had worked so hard for and grown up in...was gone.

It had sent her down a spiral of depression until Salbei's intervention. Bless him.

Today she had decided she could avoid it no longer. She would seek out Mahir and see just what kind of state she was in; Na'ima had yet to actually see what kind of effect the Insanity had any of the horsemen yet let alone her dear Sage companion.

The unknown terrified her and yet was somehow strangely exciting as well. Was he grotesque? Would she even recognize him? Perhaps he had reverted back to a primeval state and would react poorly to her presence. Was he feral? Was he normal? Was he too normal to a point where it was uncomfortable to even gaze upon him?

It had taken some searching, she was surprised that she wasn't finding him loafing around in someone else's tent, but eventually Na'ima did stumble upon him entirely by accident.

In fact she nearly headbutt him.

Na'ima gasped and took a step back away from the figure hanging in the tree. Upside..down...?

She blinked, narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brow, and looked hard at the figure.

"...Mahir?" Na'ima asked with some amusement. "Is that you?"

AstaraeI

 

[Molten Tigrex]

The figure hanging upside-down in the tree stirred, shifted. The cloak, which had appeared to be defying gravity by not falling down around his head, moved like a pair of wings, aided by what appeared at first glance to be membranes, but were really thin, shadowy arms ending in small, sharp digits. The cloak remained wrapped around him like bat's wings, though his scarf trailed along the ground in a lazy circle around his new 'home'.

A pair of yellow eyes quickly opened and regarded her curiously, followed by a sharklike grin. He looked happy to see her. "Na'ima! You are alive!"

But the Mahir she knew had always had red eyes. And he never talked about anything that wasn't Famine research so happily.  

[Eight]

It was a curious thing to see the cloak stay up that way. Na'ima's brow furrowed as she noticed the strange black veins and she stepped closer, and her eyes widened when she realized what they really were. Arms? What was this? A second crea--oh! She tensed briefly when the hanging figure moved and the first thing she saw was his eyes. Yellow, not red.

Oh...

She smiled anyway. "Very much so! And as are you! Salbei told me you were alive yet I had not seen hide nor hair of you until now. How are you, my friend?"